Since Christmas and the latest “asshole wearing explosive shorts” incident on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, I’ve been dreading traveling to the US. Most everyone knows about the increased security smoke and mirrors designed to make the terrorist wingnuts give up by boring them to death in endless lines with constantly changing rules of questionable use. Those rules are now the bane of every international traveller and carry on rules have kept me up nights lately since we went from nothing alowed on board to one book to one small bag to what now looks like “everything but the kitchen sing” again, based on a what I saw on Westjet yesterday. Whatever, I only care about my camera bag and just like every other photographer who travels, you could make a part time job out of trying differnt ways of making 90 lbs of pro gear look like a point and shoot in a pencil case. Unfortunately, I have three trips to the US coming up over the next 6 weeks for various assignments and, while Transport Canada (orwhateverthehelltheycallitthisweek) has actually changed the carry on regs to exempt professional photographers (!) the US equivalent has not. Either way, my gear goes in a rolling Pelican just in case I’m forced to check it.
I went through my passport last night and I have 19 US entry Visas for 2009. I can tell you that every single one felt like this: “>
The level of hysteria in the pro photographer community is rising daily as video and cgi stories pop up here in the there in the news. Pro forums are also chok a blok with discussions about the Red camera, Canon’s latest video capabilities etc. etc. Workshops are also popping up everywhere to “help” photographers switch or manage “convergence” and “transition” and how to learn Final Cut. The technology is impressive for sure and a lot can be done with it. For example, check these out:
However, I’m not sure the the level of noise many photographers are making about the sky falling is justified. I seriously don’t think conventional photography will be obsolete any time soon. Firstly, screen grabs from video are still not viable in terms of file size for print usage. Sure, it’s coming, but it’s not here yet. Second, the cost of hardware, computer power and time in post is astounding. Not to mention the steep learning curve. Also, lighting for video requires constant lighting which is much more expensive, less portable and vastly different in terms of skills than strobe lighting. More importantly, most customers simply won’t spend the kind of money necessary to create images of their assets or product in CGI. Rumor has it that the second CGI video above took more than 2000 hours to create! More importantly, you can’t create news or sports images in CGI and corporate headshots or lifestyle images can’t be done in any viable way with CGI.
The bottom line is, for most types of traditional photography, CGI is a non starter. If you’re a $100,000 a day advertising shooter, you’re probably already outsourcing CGI and blending it with location imagery anyway.
Don’t get me wrong. Stock photography is a big part of what I shoot to generate revenue for the onewordphotography conglomerate and it’s an important part of my retirement plan but, if you know anything about the business of stock, you can help but wonder if this is the future. Are we there yet?
I don’t do much sports photography but, before the holidays, one of my stock agencies mentioned that, along with some other stuff, they needed some fresh skiing imagery from Canada. Since my wife had plans to hit the hills a few times over the holidays, I decided to pack some gear and tag along as well. In addition to getting some shots of people at the lodge, bar, on lifts, etc. etc. I spent a couple of hours on the steeper side of the hill shooting people hitting the bumps. Aside from the hassles of trying to focus this stuff, I had a blast shooting these.
Every time someone says something along the lines of “we don’t pay but, we’ll give you a photo credit”, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. And my face gets red. And my teeth start to hurt from holding back the urge to assault someone. I know there’s lots of people out there that still fall for this nonsense and, in some VERRRY limited cases, it makes good business sense to swap work for credit but, frankly, for the most part, the person making the request might as well have said one of two things to you “we think your pictures suck, but not enough that we wont use them, just enough that we won’t pay for them” or ” you look like you might be realy stupid and desperate so, we’re going to try to get something out of you for free because, did I mention you look really dumb?”
Happened to me recently. Not sure which of the two above scenarios were on their minds but, doesn’t matter. I recently did a photo-shoot of a celebrity for a magazine. The shoot was already way over in terms of time I should have dedicated to it, mostly because of schedule changes etc. etc. on the part of the client. It happens and, you roll with it as part of being a good service provider for your client, especially if this sort of thing is out of their control. Anyway, at the last minute, the client called me and said that the subjects agent was asking if a camera crew could attend the photo-shoot for the purposes of filming the shoot as part of a larger piece they were doing on this person. I hesitated, frankly because I wanted to get this done as fast as possible and I knew a film crew would add time and hassle to my work. In the end, I agreed somewhat reluctantly, in order to help my client out.
Long story short, the television network then called to ask about using some of the images to go with their broadcast piece. You know where this is going don’t you. I declined as politely as I could (which is, in fact, not very politely) and they said something to the effect of “thanks anyway” in a tone that sounded like I was being the bastard for not letting them use my work for free.
I then sat down and wrote a ridiculously long blog entry about people who ask for free images in exchange for credit and then deleted it all, deciding that I was not capable of writing anything as funny as THIS. Enjoy!
I’m so far behind in processing images that I may never get caught up. In order of importance, client deliverables get edited first, commercial stock second and travel stock last. With the exception of a couple of errands over the weekend, I’ve been editing images for five straight days now and finally got around to finishing up my post from my recent trip to Bhutan. You can see a slideshow of my favorites HERE
I was in Vancouver today and yesterday, shooting Olympic athletes for an upcoming magazine feature and something I don’t think about often enough occurred to me while sitting at the airport going through the take. When it comes to making a living taking pictures, it’s about people. There was once a time when I thought I hated taking pictures of people. Landscapes, scenics and objects was my gig and I really had no interest in shooting people. That is until I found out you can make a much better living taking pictures of people as opposed to rocks. Someone once looked at my travel photography and asked if, in the course of taking a picture of some plaza or street, if there had been a bomb scare. It was a nice enough street scene but, it was devoid of people. People travel and pictures of travel without people didn’t sell. So, I started shooting people and discovered that I actually love it. I love it even more though when the subject is a good sport and actually does something other than stand there like a lump, looking back and forth between me and their watch with an “are we done yet?” look on their face.
Case in point is Maelle Ricker. Maelle is a World Cup Boarder Cross athlete and a participant in the 2010 games in Vancouver. Like all the other athletes over the last 2 days, she is at the top of her game and that confidence comes through in things important to me like photoshoots. She was game for everything, hammed it up for the camera and gave me the goods for a solid hour. One of the secrets to good pictures is getting two out of three of light, gesture and subject. Good subject, good light = good picture. Good light, interesting gesture = good picture. Good subject, interesting gesture = good picture. You get the idea. In many ways, taking good pictures of people is the hardest thing in the world to do. Keep this rule in mind and I promise your pictures will improve.
Of course, having subjects that don’t look at their watch every nine seconds helps tremendously.
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